Mitt Romney on Corporations

Former Republican Governor (MA); presidential nominee-apparent

I wanted to help the auto industry, not liquidate it

OBAMA: If we had taken your advice, Gov. Romney, about our auto industry, we'd be buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China.

ROMNEY: Nothing could be further from the truth. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like
American cars. And I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry. My plan to get the industry on its feet when it was in real trouble was not to start writing checks. I said these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, and in that process
they can get government help and government guarantees.

OBAMA: Governor Romney, that's not what you said.

ROMNEY: Fortunately, you can take a look at the op-ed [NY Times Nov. 18, 2008, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt"]. I said that we would provide
guarantees, to allow these companies to go through bankruptcy. Under no circumstances would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet. And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry--of course not.

Bankruptcy would have allowed Detroit to come out stronger

The president said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt. And that's right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy's and Continental Airlines and come out stronger.
I know [Obama] keeps saying, "you want to take Detroit bankrupt." Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did.

Source: Second Obama-Romney 2012 Presidential debate
, Oct 16, 2012

OpEd: Romney at Bain Capital sent jobs to China

Q: What plans do you have to reverse outsourcing of American jobs overseas?

ROMNEY: The place where we've seen manufacturing go has been China. One of the reasons for that is that people think it's more attractive in some cases to go offshore than to
stay here. I want to make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs.

GOODE: When Romney was with Bain Capital, they sent all kinds of jobs to China and other foreign countries because of lower wages, no employment commission
restrictions, no Department of Labor restrictions. If I were president, our trade measures would be totally renegotiated in favor of manufacturing and more jobs in this country, instead of seeing how many we could send overseas that
benefit many of those behind the super PACs that are pouring so much money into the Obama and Romney ads. Virgil Goode will stand up for jobs in the United States for U.S. citizens first.

You raise taxes on business and you kill jobs

OBAMA: Under Governor Romney's definition, there are a whole bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are small businesses. Donald Trump is a small business. Now, I know Donald Trump doesn't like to think of himself as small anything, but that's how
you define small businesses if you're getting business income.

ROMNEY: Why is it that I don't want to raise taxes? And actually, you said it back in 2010. You said, "When we're in recession, you shouldn't raise taxes on anyone."
Well, the economy is still growing slow. And so if you believe the same thing, you just don't want to raise taxes on people. And the reality is it's not just wealthy people--you mentioned Donald Trump. It's not just Donald Trump you're taxing.
It's all those businesses that employ one-quarter of the workers in America; these small businesses that are taxed as individuals. You raise taxes and you kill jobs.

There is no tax break for shipping jobs overseas

OBAMA: When it comes to corporate taxes, Governor Romney has said he wants to, in a revenue neutral way, close loopholes, deductions--he hasn't identified which ones they are--but that thereby bring down the corporate rate. Well, I want to do the same
thing, but I've actually identified how we can do that. And part of the way to do it is to not give tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. Right now, you can actually take a deduction for moving a plant overseas. I think most
Americans would say that doesn't make sense.

ROMNEY: Look, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.
The idea that you get a break for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case. What we do have right now is a setting where I'd like to bring money from overseas back to this country.

Replace Dodd-Frank; it helps big banks & hurts small ones

ROMNEY: Dodd-Frank was passed. And it includes a number of provisions that I think has some unintended consequences that are harmful to the economy. One is it designates a number of banks as too big to fail, and they're effectively guaranteed by the
federal government. This is the biggest kiss that's been given to New York banks I've ever seen. This is an enormous boon for them. There've been 122 community & small banks have closed since Dodd- Frank.

Q: Do you want to repeal Dodd-Frank?

ROMNEY:
Well, I would repeal and replace it. We're not going to get rid of all regulation. You need transparency, you need to have leverage limits.

OBAMA: The reason we have been in such an enormous economic crisis was prompted by reckless behavior across
the board. It wasn't just on Wall Street. Gov. Romney wants to repeal Dodd-Frank. Does anybody think that there was too much oversight and regulation of Wall Street? Because if you do, then Gov. Romney is your candidate. But that's not what I believe.

Redistribution doesn't create jobs; free enterprise does

I understand what it takes to create jobs. I did not spend my life in government. I had the chance of spending my life in small business and then larger business. I learned from those experiences how the economy works. I want to put America back to work
again. I know how to do that.

It is not by growing a bigger and bigger government, that takes from some to give from others. That's what happens in other parts of world. If it doesn't work there, it'll never work here. The right course for
America is to believe in free people & free enterprises. I don't want to redistribute wealth in America, I want to build wealth in America.

It's a critical time for our country. Where you're going to decide what kind of an America we're going to have.
I know what it takes to get jobs back in this country. To see rising incomes again. I know how to work on both sides of the aisle. I was elected Governor of a state where 87% of my legislature was in the opposition party. But we worked together.

In America, we celebrate success; we don't attack it

Some of us had this idea that if we really believed our advice was helping companies, we should invest in companies. So we started a new business called Bain Capital.

Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company
called Staples; The Sports Authority; an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised.

These are American success stories. And yet the centerpiece of the President's entire re-election campaign
is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression? In America, we celebrate success, we don't apologize for it.

We weren't always successful at Bain.
But no one ever is in the real world of business. That's what this President doesn't seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams.

Successful risk-taking lets others launch new dreams

As his partner on this amazing journey, I can tell you Mitt Romney was not handed success. He built it.

He stayed in Massachusetts after graduate school and got a job. I saw the long hours that started with that first job. I was there when he and a
small group of friends talked about starting a new company. I was there when they struggled and wondered if the whole idea just wasn't going to work. Mitt's reaction was to work harder and press on. Today that company has become another great
American success story.

Has it made those who started the company successful beyond their dreams? Yes, it has.

But because this is America, that small company which grew has helped so many others lead better lives. The jobs that grew from the risks
they took have become college educations, first homes. That success has helped fund scholarships, pensions, and retirement funds. This is the genius of America: dreams fulfilled help others launch new dreams.

We should have forced automakers into managed bankruptcies

SANTORUM [to Romney]: On principle, I opposed the Wall Street bailout. I held the same consistent position when it came to the auto bailouts. With Gov. Romney, that was not the case. He bailed out Wall Street. And then when it came to the auto workers,
he said no.

ROMNEY: Let's go back to the auto industry in 2008. The three CEOs of the three major auto companies got in their private planes and flew to Washington and said, please write us a check. I think they wanted $50 billion. And I wrote an
Op-Ed and said, absolutely not. These companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, just like other industries have. And if they shed the excessive cost that's been put on them by the UAW and by their own mismanagement, then if they need help coming
out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees. No way would we allow the auto industry in America to totally implode and disappear. With TARP, there were some pretty high risks that not just Wall Street banks, but all banks would collapse

Capitalism works; free enterprise works; & profit works

GINGRICH: [to Romney]: There are specific cases where Bain Capital's model--which was to take over a company and dramatically leverage it, leave it with a great deal of debt--made it less likely to survive. That kind of investment is very different from
venture capital.

ROMNEY: I know we're going to get attacked from the left, from Barack Obama, on capitalism. My view is, capitalism works. Free enterprise works. And I find it kind of strange, on a stage like this, with Republicans, having to describe
how private equity and venture capital create jobs. I think Adam Smith was right, and I'm going to stand and defend capitalism across this country,

Q: You claimed Bain Capital created 120,000 jobs. Could you do the math?

ROMNEY: We started a number
of businesses; four in particular created 120,000 jobs. There are others lost jobs: about 10,000. So 120,000 less 10,000 means that we created something over 100,000 jobs. Some businesses we acquired grew, like Domino's Pizza and Duane Reade and others.

Rick Perry's corporate policy stances compared to Romney's

OnTheIssues' paperback book explores how Romney's corporate regulation & taxation stances differ from Perry's, and where they are similar.
We cite details from Romney's books and speeches, and Perry's, so you can compare them, side-by-side, on issues like these:

1994 labor strike: no insurance for part-time employees

On Oct. 10, 1994, the New York Times published an article about a labor strike at an Ampad stationery factory in Indiana. Employees were protesting extensive cutbacks made since Bain Capital, the company Romney founded, and fellow investors bought the
factory in July of that year. According to the article, "the workers' accusations of callous ownership played neatly into the themes being used by Senator Kennedy."

It seemed that Romney had been stung into silence again, this time by the
Ampad story, even though he apparently had not been a direct party to the deal. He had taken leave of the relatively independent Bain Capital years earlier.

"That attack on part-time workers not having health insurance is the height of hypocrisy,"
Romney snarled, disdainfully. "Senator Kennedy and his family have a multiple real-estate empire. Senator, I'm sure you know that your workers who are part-time employees don't have health insurance there, don't you?" Kennedy had no ready answer.

Adopt reasonable compensation incentives for CEOs

In his book "No Apology," released in early 2010, Romney laid out the tone and approach he hoped to take throughout the campaign. Many of the predictably vague items could give conservatives as much pause as they give moderates and liberals
reasons to cheer. For instance:

17) Encourage shareholders and boards of directors to adopt reasonable compensation and long-term incentives for CEOs and executives.

18) Encourage measurement of corporate
CEOs and union CEOs on the basis of teamwork, productivity, and long-term success of the enterprise.

How he would go about accomplishing these missions nearly impossible remains a mystery.
But at least he acknowledges that the expanding gap between the rich, middle class, and poor is a serious social and economic issue that must be dealt with comprehensively if America is to remain strong and free.

Everything corporations earn also goes to people

At the Iowa State Fair in Aug. 2011, Romney mixed it up with a heckler:

Romney: "We have to make sure that the promises we make--and Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare--are promises we can keep. And there are various ways of doing that. One is, we
could raise taxes on people."

Romney: "Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets! Human beings, my friend. So number 1, you can raise taxes. That's not the approach that
I would take."

What Romney means is that revenues earned by corporations end up in the pockets of people; corporations provide jobs that pay people money. What Romney doesn't discuss is what kinds of corporate employees benefit most from low taxes.

No individual bailouts; but preserve financial system

Q: What would you do differently than what Pres. Bush did in 2008?

A: I'm not interested in bailing out individual institutions that have wealthy people that want to make sure that their shares are worth something. I am interested in making sure that
we preserve our financial system.

Q: So would you not be open to another Wall Street bailout?

A: Well, no one likes the idea of a Wall Street bailout. I certainly don't.

Q: But you said in 2008 that it prevented financial collapse.

A: There's no question but that Bush's action was designed to keep the entire currency worth something and to make sure we didn't all lose our jobs. My experience tells me that we were on the precipice. Was it perfect? No. Was it well-implemented?
No, not particularly. Should they have used the funds to bail out GM and Chrysler? No. But this approach of saying, look, we're going to have to preserve our currency and maintain America and our financial system is essential.

Big banks handle massive regulations; small banks get killed

Q: My small business can't get credit. What would you do to make bank lending more accessible?

ROMNEY: What's happened in this country, [is] the absolute wrong time to have the absolute wrong people put together a financial regulatory bill was right
now and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. They were the wrong guys at the wrong time. Because what they did with this new bill is usher in what will be thousands of pages of new regulations. The big banks, the big money center banks in Wall Street, they can
deal with that. They have hundreds of lawyers working on that legislation. For community banks that provide loans to business like yours, they can't possibly deal with a regulatory burden like that. Small community banks across this country are starving
and struggling because of inspectors that are making their job impossible. It's a killer for the small banks. And those small banks loaning to small businesses and entrepreneurs are what have typically gotten our economy out of recession.

America needs a conservative businessman to recover economy

Obama doesn't understand how the free economy works. I'm a conservative businessman. And that is what America needs if we're going to get our economy going. I put out a booklet which describes the things
I'd do to get this economy going again. There are 59 different steps that have to be taken. And President Obama, there's no way he could do something like that because he just doesn't understand it.

Corporations are people

Campaigning in Iowa, Mitt Romney told a heckler, "Corporations are people, my friend"--words immediately seized upon by Democrats in what they termed as a possible defining statement by the presidential candidate.

Romney, speaking to a crowd at the Iowa
State Fair, was being pressed about raising taxes to help cover entitlement spending. When one mentioned raising corporate tax rates, Romney responded by saying corporations were no different than people. The line earned him a sustained round of applause
from the crowd.

But the Democratic National Committee fired off emails almost immediately after the remarks, as part of a continuing effort to frame the GOP frontrunner as an out-of-touch elitist, writing: "This is what Mitt Romney is going to run on?"

A small band of hecklers, positioned near the stage, continually quarreled with Romney about whether wealthy Americans should pay higher taxes. "There was a time in this country when we didn't attack people based on their success," Romney said.

Source: James Oliphant in the Los Angeles Times
, Aug 11, 2011

Corporations won't send jobs overseas if tax rates lowered

There's a good deal of rhetoric today from liberal politicians who say that we need to tax those corporations that "send jobs overseas." I'm afraid they don't understand that companies with subsidiaries in other countries pay taxes there. Requiring them
to pay still-higher US taxes would make them less competitive in those markets, making it bad for their business overseas, and also for jobs here. Sales made by subsidiaries of US companies are often supported by high-paying jobs in finance, research
& management at home. And if a company's tax burden under such legislation grew too high, it could simply move overseas to avoid it--resulting in a loss of tax revenue for the US, not a net gain. Those of us who want to see corporate tax rates lowered
aren't trying to fill the pockets of executives. We're trying to keep businesses--and jobs--here in the US, and to expand savings and investment, personal incomes, and our entire national economy--all of which are very good things for everyone.

TARP should not be used for auto company bailouts

I know we didn't all agree on TARP. I believe that it was necessary to prevent a cascade of bank collapses. For free markets to work, there has to be a currency and a functioning financial system. But we can agree on this: TARP should not have been used
to bail out GM, Chrysler and the UAW. And this is personal for me, I want the US auto industry to succeed. But that can only happen if its excessive costs and burdens are restructured. The right answer for Detroit is this: Fix it first.

All of these
measures are meant to confront the current economic peril. Properly guided, Washington could in fact speed the recovery. So far, some of the actions it has taken will help, and some will hurt. But we can be certain that the American economy will recover.
The invisible hand of the market is more powerful than the lumbering machinery of government. The private sector--entrepreneurs and businesses large and small--will create the millions of jobs our country needs.

Key to economic stimulus: get companies to buy more stuff

Q: The president’s economic stimulus plan would send out 116 million checks to American homes. The plan is somewhat contrary to yours, providing lots of short-term stimulus to individuals. Your plan focuses as much on the long term as the short term.
Are you disappointed that your recipe for the economy was not embraced by the president? And will you now embrace his plan?

A: Well, there’s a great deal that is effective in his plan. First, he’s getting money back to consumers. That makes sense to me
I just think we need to go further. We go to corporate support and helping corporations have the incentive to buy more capital equipment. That he also does. I do it more aggressively by writing off a larger amount of capital expenditures--getting
companies to buy more stuff so that other companies will hire people. If you want to turn an economy around, the key thing is to grow jobs. It’s not just to get checks in the hands of consumers; it’s consumers & companies buying things that create jobs.

Reduce corporate tax rate--we have 2nd highest in world

Q: Some economists have suggested a reduction in corporate taxes to try to stimulate the economy, create jobs, encourage foreign companies to come invest in the United States, create jobs here. Is that a good idea?

A: It is a good idea. It’s something
I’ve been proposing for many months. We have a roughly 35% corporate income tax rate. It’s almost tied with Japan, which is the highest in the world. Nations like Ireland have learned the game.
They’ve put the rate down at half of ours or less and have attracted a lot of jobs. The challenge with a corporate tax cut is that it takes a while to have an impact.
It has a significant positive impact over time. It’s probably not likely to have an immediate boost because it takes a while for companies to make investment decisions. But it is a good idea.

You don’t help the wage-earner by attacking the wage-payer

Q: Mike Huckabee took this swipe at you indirectly in this ad: “I believe most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off.” That last line, about “the guy who laid them off,” a lot of his
supporters are saying that would be you.

A: Well, you know, as it’s been said for a long time, you don’t help the wage-earner by attacking the wage-payer. And this kind of divisive, populist approach is like he’s channeling John Edwards.
It is not working for John Edwards. It’s not going to work for Mike Huckabee. The Republican Party is one where people recognize opportunity, and they welcome individuals who have gone out and taken risks and tried to create jobs.
Small companies in this country create the vast majority of jobs in America. I began a very small business that’s grown. My business has not laid people off. It’s grown and grown and grown.

FactCheck: Closed $174M in corporate tax loopholes

In a new twist on an old theme, Romney downplayed the fee increases he enacted during his tenure as governor. Romney claimed, “We raised fees by $240 million... we brought them up to the cost of providing services.”
However, in 2006 his own administration estimated the figure to be higher--$260 million. Independent estimates were higher yet, up to $400 million.

Moreover, Romney ignores the
$174 million that his own administration figures he raised through “closing loopholes” in the corporate tax structure, which amounted to a tax increase for those who were using them.

Nor is it true that all of Romney’s fee increases were aimed at
providing services. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says, “It’s been disingenuous to say there’s no new taxes, in the sense that there’s very little connection to the fee increases and the cost of services that the fees are supposed to represent.”

Don’t apply Sec. 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley to smaller companies

Q: Is London going to replace New York as the financial capital of the world?

A: Is London going to replace New York? Of course not. Should we fix Sarbanes-Oxley and take out
Section 404 as it applies to smaller companies? Of course we should. Is this country the hope of the world? Absolutely.

Source: 2007 Republican debate in Dearborn, Michigan
, Oct 9, 2007

NY Times editorial: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt"

When, on May 24, 2011, Chrysler announced that it was repaying the loans years ahead of schedule, the same Mitt Romney who'd used the pages of the "New York Times" to declare "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" boldly sought to claim credit for the auto industry's
turnaround. "Mitt Romney had the idea 1st," said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman. "You have to acknowledge that. He was advocating for a course of action that eventually the Obama administration adopted."

This was doubly wrong.
In the first instance, without the governor's investment, which Romney condemned, there would have been no auto industry left to save. Second, it was the government's intervention and the high-speed bankruptcy orchestrated by the Treasury Department
that saved GM and Chrysler. A traditional bankruptcy without the US government's participation would likely have meant liquidation and the loss of the backbone of American manufacturing.

Company’s culture must align with mission, or mission fails

I know what it’s like to work at a place where the culture doesn’t fit the vision. It’s the mission that suffers most. The culture overpowers the most noble mission statement. A few years into the life of Bain Capital, a number of my partners and I began
to feel that something was wrong. We went through a “team building” exercise with psychologists in California called Human Factors.

One of the more revealing observations was that our firm’s culture was inconsistent with our stated mission, with stress
and dissonance as the result.

At Bain Capital, we aspired to have a firm that put our investors’ interests first, even before our own. But competitive self-interest increasingly figured quite prominently in decision-making.

We went to work to change
our culture, to make it more consistent with our personal values and with the objectives we had for our firm. The struggle for integrity between mission and culture was never abandoned. And that made Bain Capital a better place to work.

Piracy protection key to selling Olympic sponsorships

The heart of our pitch was all about associating products and services with the qualities that the Olympics had come to represent: athleticism, achievement, sacrifice, competition, and ideals like peace and brotherhood. If brand is what we were selling,
we had to make sure the sponsors actually got the positive associations they were paying so much to get. We had a budget for “ambush marketing prevention” because you will not be able to sell sponsorships unless you can deliver on your promise to go
after people that pirate the Olympic brand.

Use of Olympic symbols, or even the words “Olympic” or “Olympiad” without permission were easy ways for companies to get Olympic association free. The government passed a law making it illegal.

We took public relations hits for our brand protection efforts. It never goes over well when the guys in the suits come down on the little Mom and Pop operations that do not know enough not to use the Olympic rings in their homegrown marketing.

Mitt Romney on Bain Capital

The Bain Way: data-driven analysis

By the time Mitt Romney walked into the offices of his mentor and boss, Bill Bain, in 1983, the 36-year-old was already a business consulting star. Bain had a stunning proposition: he was prepared to entrust an entirely new venture to Romney.

The Bain
Way, as it became known, was intensely analytical and data-driven, a quality it shared with other firms' methods. But Bill Bain had come up with the idea of working for just one client per industry and devoting Bain & Company entirely to that company,
with a strict vow of confidentiality. As a result, the companies shared more information, and consultants could plow to greater depth. It doesn't sound like a revolutionary notion, but in many ways it was.

From the start Romney was perfectly adapted to
the Bain Way and became a devoted disciple. Patient analysis and attention to nuance were what drove him. It took a healthy ego to go into a business and tell an owner how to run his firm better, and most clients lauded Romney's efforts.

At Bain Capital, made money on 35 out of 68 projects

Romney had a 15-year odyssey at Bain Capital. Boasting about those years when running for senator, governor, or president, Romney would usually talk about how he had helped create jobs at new or underperforming companies and say that he learned how jobs
and business come and go. He'd typically mention a few well-known companies in which he and his partners had invested, such as Staples. But the full story of his years at Bain Capital is far more complicated.

Romney was involved in about 100 deals.
The Wall Street firm Deutsche Bank examined 68 major deals that had taken place on Romney's watch. Of those, Bain had lost money or broken even on 33. Overall, though, the numbers were stunning: Bain was nearly doubling its investors'
money annually, achieving one of the best track records in the business, Most of that success came from a handful of little-known but incredibly successful investments. But the venture had begun with plenty of failures--and lessons.

1980s: Leveraged buyout profit from increased corporate debt

Billions were being made in the field of leveraged buyouts in the roaring 80s, and Romney was fully in the game. In 2011, Romney said his work had "led me to become very deeply involved in helping other businesses that were going through tough times.
Sometimes I was successful and we were able to help create jobs, other times I wasn't." It was a vague summary of what was a very controversial type of business.

In his 2004 autobiography, "Turnaround", Romney put it more bluntly: "I never actually ran
one of our investments; that was left to management." He explained that his strategy was to "invest in these underperforming companies, using the equivalent of a mortgage to leverage up our investment. Then we would go to work to help management make
their business more successful." Romney's phrase "leverage up" meant, while putting relatively little money on the table, Bain could strike a deal using largely debt. That generally meant that the company being acquired had to borrow huge sums.

I was CEO at mainstream businesses, not Wall St.

CAIN: Gov. Romney has a very distinguished career. There's one difference between the two of us in terms of our experience. With all due respect, his business executive experience has been more Wall Street-oriented; mine has been more Main Street.
I have managed small companies. I've actually had to clean the parking lot. I've worked with groups of businesses.

ROMNEY: The fact that we're both doing as well as we are is we both have a private-sector background.
But I just want to set the record straight. I've been chief executive officer four times, once for a start-up and three times for turnarounds. One was a financial services company.
That was the start-up. A consulting company, that's a mainstream business. The Olympics, that's certainly mainstream. And, of course, the state of Massachusetts. In all those settings, I've learned how to create jobs.

Net-net, Bain Capital created tens of thousands of new jobs

HUNTSMAN: [to Romney]: Some might see your past employment with Bain Capital as more of a financial engineer--somebody who breaks down businesses, destroys jobs as opposed to creating jobs and opportunity, leveraging up, spinning off, enriching
shareholders.

ROMNEY: Well, my background is quite different than you describe. In the business I was in, we didn't take things apart and cut them off and sell them off. We instead helped start businesses. We started Staples, we started the Sports
Authority, we started Bright Horizons children centers. We began businesses. Sometimes we acquired businesses and tried to turn them around--typically effectively--and net-net created tens of thousands of new jobs. And I'm proud of the fact that we were
able to do that. That's a big part of the American system. People are not going to be looking for someone who's not successful. They want someone who has been successful and who knows how fundamentally the economy works.

Spun off Bain Capital from Bain Consulting & earned fortune

In 1984 Bain’s top brass asked Mitt to form Bain Capital, a venture capital spin off. Romney, like anyone else starting a business, needed to raise start-up money. He did, to the tune of $30 million.
Today the firm has approximately $40 billion of assets under management.

Romney recruited the best of Bain Consulting.
Bain Capital invested heavily in struggling businesses or bought them outright.
Their modus operandi as simple: find failing companies and apply the proven approach of quality thinking, rigorous analysis, and sound business principles to raise profitability. When the companies sold, Bain partners made fortunes.

Approach to business as “Bainiac”: meritocracy & results

Bain & Company was run as a complete meritocracy. Their “case method” formed Mitt Romney’s approach to business, catapulted him to the top of two professions--consulting and investment--and earned him the reputation as a gifted turnaround artist.

Bainiacs, as they are called, are driven to succeed, and are a dogged group of Type AAAs. Bain’s slogan is: “Helping make companies more valuable.” The promise is profit. The promise is usually kept.

Bain became one of the most sought-after landing
zones for Harvard Business School’s best and brightest, because Bain mattered; Bain changed things. “The idea that consultancies should not measure themselves by the thickness of their reports, or even the elegance of their writing, but rather by whether
or not the report was effectively implemented [as Bain did], was the inflection point in the history of consulting,” Romney told Consulting magazine. Bain’s website cited a press quotation, “Bain delivers results, not theory.”